Government & Communications

The Radio Television Digital News Association Voice of the First Amendment Task Force is expressing extreme concern about Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ refusal – again – to say his Department of Justice will not target journalists who protect the identities of their confidential sources.

Facebook hired the former top aide to a lawmaker investigating how Russians may have used its platform to subvert the 2016 election to lobby on its behalf in Oct. Facebook is bolstering its forces in Washington amid unprecedented investigations into the power of its platform and a new bill that would create new disclosure requirements for online political ads. Facebook hired Luke Albee to lobby on, among other issues, "election integrity," per the form.

President Donald Trump bashed CNN upon his return from a 12-day Asia trip, calling it "fake" in an early morning tweet on Nov 15. The president said he was forced to watch the "loser" network it during his stay in the Philippines. "While in the Philippines I was forced to watch @CNN, which I have not done in months, and again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is." Trump wrote. "Loser!"  President Trump by contrast tweeted that "Fox and Friends" would be showing more footage of his "successful" trip overseas.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, testifying at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, pushed back on recent reports suggesting the politicization of the government's review of the AT&T and Time Warner merger. Last week, it was widely reported that the Department of Justice asked AT&T in a Monday meeting to divest Turner as a condition of winning approval, possibly owing to President Donald Trump's distaste for CNN. "First, I would say that I don't accept, and cannot accept, the accuracy of that news report," Sessions told Rep Hank Johnson (D-GA).

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Nov 14 again revised his account of what he knew about the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russians, acknowledging for the first time that he recalled a meeting where a foreign policy adviser mentioned having contacts who could possibly broker a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Sessions said he now remembered adviser George Papadopoulos saying in March 2016 that he knew people who might be able to help arrange a Trump-Putin meeting.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition filed an Application for Review (AFR) to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC), Office of the General Counsel (OGC) seeking review of the letter dated September 14, 2017 stating that the FCC was producing its “final production of documents” in response to NHMC’s FOIA requests filed in early May 2017.

Apparently, AT&T will try to dig into whether the White House influenced the Justice Department’s review of the company’s planned takeover of Time Warner if the government sues to block the deal.  In the event of a trial over the $85.4 billion deal, AT&T intends to seek court permission for access to communications between the White House and the Justice Department about the takeover, apparently. The Justice Department’s antitrust division is poised to file a lawsuit to stop the deal if it can’t reach an agreement with the companies.

Governments around the world are dramatically increasing their efforts to manipulate information on social media, threatening the notion of the internet as a liberating technology. Online manipulation and disinformation tactics played an important role in elections in at least 18 countries over the past year, including the United States, damaging citizens’ ability to choose their leaders based on factual news and authentic debate.

A new era of cutting-age technology begins Nov 13 at the United States Supreme Court, as the public for the first time will be able to access briefs and other case documents on the court’s website. Unimpressed? Perhaps the reader, in the waning second decade of the 21st century, thinks such an innovation might have been implemented, say, many years ago, as it was for the rest of the federal courts. “The courts will often choose to be late to the harvest of American ingenuity,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote when announcing the online project at the end of 2014.

Top House Democrats are calling for the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to be investigated over whether he has been improperly clearing regulatory hurdles for the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s pending acquisition of Tribune Media. Reps Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Frank Pallone Jr (D-NJ), the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Commerce Committee respectively, sent a letter to the FCC inspector general, asking that he probe whether Chairman Ajit Pai has been clearing the way for the $3.9 billion deal.